Involuntary
by yykhung
Summary: "Done without will or conscious control". Set after TLJ. Kylo Ren and Rey push and pull away from each other like involuntary reflexes.
1. Blinking

**"Blinking"**

Lightyears.

Stars, countless and peerless in between.

 _Closing his eyes, he could make out every strand of loose brown tendrils and drew constellations on her face with her sun-tanned freckles._

Opening them again, he stared out at the vast void that was speckled with stars.

He brought his stretched-out arm back down besides him. He had unconsciously reached out again.

As long as he was alive, he would destroy. He would conquer, he would ravage, he would absorb.

His eyes watered as he struggled not to blink.

 _Close. Her back was to him. He left them this way for a moment longer, wanting to linger in the feeling he felt stirring in his chest._

Open. Black and cold. His forehead was pressed upon the glass window.

 _Close. She shifted and turned. For the slightest moment, he saw the profile of her face, silhouetted against a fire. He traced the shadow of her forehead, her nose, her lips._

Open. Suffocating and empty. Alone. His brows furrowed together and he let out a breath he didn't know he held in.

He would have killed, he had killed…he would have given everything, he had given everything to be in the position he was in now.

Power beyond imagination. Respect and terror upon hearing his name. Ultimate command of the galaxy.

She was a nobody who had no place in this story. A nobody with who had no backstory, no lineage, no claim to any right on either side of this epic saga.

A nobody who lucked out when a traitor stumbled over her on a forsaken planet in the corner of the galaxy.

A nobody who fantasized about heroes that moved rocks with their minds and hope.

A nobody that upon her expiration, would just wither into the vast nothingness of space, without anyone as much as noticing her existence withering and extinguishing.

 _Close. But not to him._

Lightyears. Solar systems and planets between. He destroyed after he searched and found nothing that left evidence of her presence.

Open. He knew that he would keep counting the stars endlessly with every breath he took. Make being alone temporary and everything else worth it.

 _Close. "Please", he whispered to nobody._


	2. Breathing

**"Breathing"**

Rey turned slightly away from the small fire the group of survivors had started to keep themselves warm. She felt eyes raking over her again.

She sharply inhaled.

A familiar feeling washed over her for a moment.

The feeling passed as quickly as it came in the blink of an eye.

She exhaled. Too close, yet too far for any comfort.

She knew that he would take whatever he wanted. He had seen her every fear, her every discomfort, her every insecurity in an instant when he probed her mind.

She also knew that his eyes betrayed every feeling, every truth he had nestled within him.

So, she kept running. Pushing so hard, that left her breathless with every space jump the remnants of the Resistance made.

She inhaled deeply as she sat to meditate.

 _Dark pools of brown that reflected burning ashes that cascaded around them. Incoherent words, deep murmurings, and pleading ministrations danced across the bond that ribboned between them. They made no sense, but was everything they both needed._

She exhaled slowly, straining and pushing her lungs, trying to make the moment last.

Inhale.

He was a living legacy, the blood of heroes and royalty mixed together.

He had a loving family that wanted nothing but for him to return home to begin to forgive. He was wanted.

Exhale.

He could be everything the Alliance could have dreamed up, the very definition of a beacon of endless hope. He alone could turn the tides.

He was a murder. But he had every moment, a clear path paved in front of him to make strides back towards the light.

Inhale.

 _She saw it. The moment his eyes blinked, leaving hers. Emotions that needed no words, and feelings that had no other names lost as his eyes flickered backwards at the empty throne._

Exhale.

Peace and distance was her salvation. Her resolve was too mixed with loss to stop running now.

 _"Please…" she whispered back to the stars._


	3. Heartbeats

**"Heartbeats"**

As he laid dying, he let all his walls come down. It wasn't as difficult as he always made it seem, he mused to himself.

His pulse raced momentarily, in anticipation.

"Please", he willed the Force. For as long as he had forsaken the ways of it, turned his back on everything, he pleaded selfishly at it one last time.

"Rey."

"Rey."

"Rey…" he whispered, sensing her shared desperation feathering through him to not die alone. "I'm here."

Her pulse slowed, calming down as a light current washed over her again.

Hazel met deep brown. Their blood, sharing the same color as it oxidized, mirrored in pools surrounding them.

"Ben".

This is where it ends. This is how their story finishes. Their fate threaded together gently, yet tightly.

Both know it is bleak. Both know it is the end. He is bleeding profusely from his torso, each breath he takes sputters more blood to the ground. Her midsection is crushed under rocks, a dark liquid cascading perilously around her. Battles for whatever seemingly meaningless justification now quickly claiming both of them.

No more pretenses to stop them. No more egos, no more personas to uphold, no more morals to consider. Stars and lightyears between, yet in this moment they are here together.

He smiles unbiddenly at her. Dark eyes fading rapidly, holding her face steady in it. He drinks in every feature, holding her in admiring rapture. There is nothing else he can see or needs.

The hand she retracted years ago extends to him with no resistance this time, exhausting the last of her energy. She relaxes and sends years' worth of affection to him. There is nothing else she needs to feel.

Fingers hungrily interlock, savoring the last of each other's warmth ebbing away, feeling each other's heartbeats diminish. His thumb struggling to caress hers. Her fingers twitch weakly in acknowledgement. They never needed words, only this one last moment. They ran, polarized away from each other for a lifetime to be magnetized together at the end.

Hope was a funny and forlorn thing. Only in the darkest of times, does it shine the brightest to those that look for it.

She closed her eyes one last time.

He took his last breath.

Heartbeats in dire tandem faded.

Their forms, both alone in different, lonely parts of the universe, hands extended towards nothing, dissipated away, becoming reminders that they were both brief existences.

The Force welcomed them back. In the Force, their souls melted back together as small, unnamed flickers to be sent back out once again in the never-ending cycle that was the universe's way.

Maybe they'll find each other again. Maybe they won't.

The count of stars never being recognizable.

New stars being born and old ones extinguishing as quietly as a mummer, and as often as a heart beats.


End file.
